


Something New

by Ch4plinfan



Category: Riverdale (TV 2017)
Genre: Angst and Feels, Best Friends, Childhood Friends, Eventual Romance, Eventual Sex, F/M, Feels, Friends to Lovers
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-11-07
Updated: 2018-11-14
Packaged: 2019-08-20 01:12:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 6
Words: 21,224
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16545953
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ch4plinfan/pseuds/Ch4plinfan
Summary: You return to Riverdale after five years away, having gone through a great deal in the last couple of years. You rekindle your friendship with your best friend, who now goes by Sweet Pea, and fall in love, amidst a tumultuous time in Riverdale and with the Southside Serpents.





	1. Chapter 1

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> You and your parents just moved back to Riverdale after being away for 5 years. You have baggage and try to keep it in check while you navigate your first day at Southside High. You have a run-in with the Ghoulies and meet the school nurse, while still wondering about the tall guy who had stared at you in first period.

“Please, for everyone’s sake, stay out of trouble. No fighting, no breaking things, no… Just nothing like last time, please?” your mom said, grabbing your hand in hers and giving it a gentle squeeze. You smiled and she pulled you into a soft, genuine embrace.

“I doubt this will be anything like last time. I’m new here and no one will have done anything to me yet, but I’ll keep all of that in mind.” You whispered before you pulled away from the embrace and packed your lunch in your new backpack. You liked the way it crinkled when you moved it and the way the stiff zipper screeched when you zipped it, not yet used to being used.

You looked over at your mom and couldn’t stop yourself from hugging her again. She held you tightly and gently patted your back. You could hear her heartbeat, steady and sure, from the place that you’d rested your head on her shoulder. You could’ve stayed there all day if both of your schedules had allowed you to.

"You’ve got to get going, lovely. You’ll miss your bus.” Your mom grabbed your jaw beneath your left cheek and rubbed your cheek with her thumb. She kissed your forehead and then continued making her coffee, getting ready to start her own first day at the Riverdale Register.

Maggie was a great mom and whenever you thought of everything she’d given up or done to keep you here, you were nothing but grateful to her. For giving you a chance. For choosing you to live with her and Jim. For choosing to adopt you and take you with them when they got jobs out of state.

You’d missed Riverdale in the five years you’d been gone, but you’d had supportive guardians for the first time in your life and you weren’t about to begrudge them from taking you away from where and who you were. You had recently taken to referring to them as mom and dad in your head. You hadn’t quite been able to roll the words off of your reluctant tongue, but you knew that your headspace was the place to start with major changes like that. You felt it was the least you could do for them after bailing you out time and time again from the circumstances you kept finding yourself in.

You saw Jim come down the stairs as you were heading out.

“Stay safe out there, kiddo! And try to have a good day. Just think, three more years and you’ll be in college,” your dad said, patting you on the shoulder as he passed by you on his way to the kitchen.

“Or, two more semesters until summer. I like that one better, Jim!” you shouted toward the kitchen, smiling when you saw him pop his head around the corner and sliding out the door with a wave. You locked the front door and started walking down the block to the bus stop.

The bus was pulling up as you got to the stop. You got onto the yellow beast, the smell of body odor and old food wafting through the air. It smelled so bad, you almost lost your breath. You passed by rows and rows of your peers, already garnering unwanted attention.

You found a spot near the back of the bus next to a young man who was eating a bag of Doritos. You were apprehensive about sitting there, but the guy looked at you after you settled in next to him and smiled at you, loosing some of the red-orange dust around his mouth onto his shirt. You felt better and pulled your earbuds out of your pocket, placing them in your ears and zoning out to the sounds of your favorite band.

When the bus stopped in front of a large, grey building, you felt like you’d gotten on the wrong bus. The school it’d stopped in front of reminded you of the hospital that you’d been in until about three months prior; you tried to shake that feeling, reminding yourself repeatedly that this was a school and not that awful place.

You followed the line of students up the stairs and through graffiti covered metal detectors. The smell of your seat-mate’s nacho chips still lingered in your nostrils faintly, but you soon wished that it had remained. The halls of the school were littered with pockets of unpleasant smells, perfume wafting from the skin of made-up people in tight clothing, sweat and body odor from the kids from homes that reminded you of where you grew up, and the smell of sugar and leather from the leather-clad pocket of strangers that you almost walked into.

You received a cold look and stares from multiple people in the group, their leather jackets creasing as they turned to look at you. You made a note to avoid walking into anyone with that many studs and metal accents; you chuckled to yourself as you considered how much it would have hurt if you had walked into one of them.

Continuing down the hall, you finally found the room number of your first class and sat in the exact middle of the mostly empty room. There was a person in goth attire staring blankly at their phone screen as they scrolled through their feed and two people chattering amongst themselves in the other corner of the back of the room whose faces lit up when their friends sat down next to them, their volume increasing as they talked about their respective summers.

You kept to yourself, trying not to disrupt any pre-formed social circles. You knew the irritation of having to extend social niceties to new people when you really wanted to just be talking to your friends. You thought then of the friends that you’d left behind.

You’d only had two people that you called ‘friends’ during the five years you were in Seattle, but they were enough for you. They were perfectly lovely, geeky women and were there to talk to about school or your extracurriculars. Really, you had lost them before you ever left Washington, when you had your break and ended up at the hospital. You didn’t blame your friends for tapping out; things had gotten too real and you weren’t surprised when they never returned to visit you.

You’d only ever had one friend that you’d shared your whole self with and you’d left him in Riverdale all those years ago.

Some time passed while you were thinking about your other life and when you looked up from the paper that you were doodling on, the class was mostly full. Everyone was excitedly catching up and pulling out their devices to scroll through social media feeds, learning the stories behind posts of their peers. As you glanced around the room, you saw two different, spaced out collections of leather-clad teens. One set had studs and metal around the ghostly image of a skull. You heard someone whisper “Ghoulies” and you figured that was them. The other set had plain leather jackets and a proud patch of a coiled, attack-ready snake with the words, “South Side Serpents” around it.

You remembered the Serpents from your youth; several of your companions had been the children of Serpents or lived with one. They’d always been prevalent in the Riverdale community, while you couldn’t remember ever hearing about the Ghoulies. You figured that they must be relatively new, or at least new amongst the Southside community.

The instructor, Mr. Phillips, came in with a rushed, rather irritated demeanor, filling the room with a sense of dread. He peered around the room, counting, before he began the list of attendance.

“Y/N Y/L/N,” Mr. Phillips shouted over the still buzzing room.

“Here,” you said, raising your hand and causing people to look at you.

You noticed one set of eyes in particular, a pair of dark brown ones cast at you from the Serpent corner of the room. You recognized them, but not the person who had them. You wondered if the black haired, brown-skinned young man staring at you could be who you thought he was, but you soon shook it off. You didn’t hear his name in roll call and the guy who’d been looking at you had raised his hand to the name, Sweet Pea.

A little bit into class, Mr. Phillips asked for two volunteers to go to the library and retrieve the books he’d reserved for the class. You raised your hand, looking forward to finding the library and your way around the school a little. You were the only one to volunteer, which you assured Mr. Phillips was fine, and you left when he continued going through the syllabus for his course.

You found the library and retrieved the books with no issue. You weren’t very excited to see the condition of the books and picked the best looking one to keep for yourself, which you figured was fair since you’d been the one tasked to retrieve them. You looked at the used, tattered copy of Lord of the Flies and laughed a little to yourself.

You knew this book through and through since you’d read it in freshman year and then again last year before you’d had to leave school. It was still hard for you to believe that your school hadn’t let you keep your progress in sophomore year and make it up in the summer. Now you were a junior stuck in sophomore classes, doomed to repeat the content you’d already covered in prior classes at a worse place. You sighed and smiled at the librarian before tucking the stack of paperbacks under your chin and returning to class.

When you returned, Mr. Phillips nodded at you and gestured at the room. You began handing out the books, huffing when your peers wouldn’t move their backpacks or when one of them would pull a book from the center of the stack and you’d have to adjust your hold on the books to avoid certain disaster. You kept your copy with you as you served the Serpents their books. You dropped one of the last books and you bent down to pick it up while the other Serpents grabbed their own copies.

When you looked up, the brown eyes of Sweet Pea were on you again and you watched him smirk, his Serpent tattoo gliding along the flesh of his neck, almost appearing to move on its own. He was really handsome and you felt a familiarity with him, though you didn’t know why you felt that way for a stranger. You grabbed the book, one in a condition that you hadn’t wanted, and stole yourself back to your seat. You felt heat rise in your face as your blood rushed to the skin of your cheeks and you set yourself to continuing with your doodles.

In the middle of your class a couple periods later, you asked to be excused and went to the closest bathroom you could find. You were feeling really overwhelmed and needed to retch. After you did, you came out of the stall and moved to an open sink. 

A group of Ghoulies, a mix of young men and women, came in and the restroom cleared out. You tried to follow them, but were nearly clothes-lined by one of the male looking Ghoulies. He smiled and his friends stepped forward around you.

“Fresh meat. Do you know who we are?” the male said, grabbing the back of your hair and giving you a really bad feeling in your stomach.

“You’re Ghoulies,” you replied coolly, preparing yourself for anything.

“Good. And do you know what we do to new kids around here?”

“No I don’t, but I’m sure that you’re about to enlighten me.” You laughed nervously. Your interlocutor edged closer to you, pushing his body against you. His friends moved closer too, crowding you.

“Grab her,” the main guy commanded, smiling with a cruel grin. You thought about your options and decided that your mom might end up disappointed, but it was worth not being beat up.

You punched the main guy and watched him stumble backward. You ducked a punch and kicked the legs of two of the other Ghoulies who were waiting for your blood. You took off running and almost made it out of the room before you were tripped and dragged backward. You flailed your arms and legs, trying to kick and hit yourself free, but they all descended upon you. After a few minutes of being kicked, stepped on, and hit, you were left, bleeding and alone, on the floor of the bathroom.

After you caught your breath and were sure they weren’t coming back, you stood and checked the damage in the mirror of the closest sink. Your left eye was puffy and red, your right eye had a deep cut right next to it, and your lip was busted, causing blood to flood your mouth. You groaned as you readjusted yourself in front of the mirror to allow you to stick your face under the tall faucet into the deep basin.

Under the running water, you thought of how easy it would be to drown in such a large sink. Never have to face your parents with yet another set of bruises and cuts from fighting. Never have to face the looks of your peers. Never have to interact with the Ghoulies again.

It seemed ideal until the eyes of the Serpent ran in your head, his face coming to your vision. You had to know who he was and why you had felt comfortable when you were close to him.

You cleaned yourself up and visited the nurse, who sent an office aide to fetch your things from your class. You got the feeling this was common practice when the aide rolled their eyes as if to say, 'again’. You made sure everything was in your backpack and dismissed the aide with a grateful word. The nurse offered to stitch above your eye and you hesitated, until she sat down next to you and held your hand.

“I’ve been a nurse for 34 years, sweetheart. And I spent most of them in the ER doing the sutures and general care for the patients that the doctor’s found themselves too busy for. I’m good at what I do and I promise you that it will be the smallest scar possible.” She smiled and you nodded. You felt yourself wanting to know this woman and joked to yourself that, given your record, you’d be well acquainted with her soon.

She stitched your face and examined the damage done to your abdomen. “It looks like you’ll have some awful bruising, but nothing seems to be broken or distended. If you feel your belly get hard or bloat anywhere, please go to the doctor. Sorry that this is the welcome you get to Southside. You were probably an opportunity for some of the Ghoulies to prove themselves.” She gave you a sad smile and pulled your shirt back down over your stomach.

“Can I stay here until lunch?” You asked, hoping that you could. You weren’t up for going back to geometry or sitting through biology before you got to eat.

“I will go a step further and arrange for you to go home. No need for you to get penalized for this bullshit.” Her use of a bad word made you chuckle and she introduced herself to you, “I’m Holly Merryweather. But you can call me Holly or anything other than Ma’m. Please don’t Ma’m me. I don’t feel that old yet,” she said, a sly smile crossing her lips.

“Thank you, Holly. I really appreciate it. I really don’t think I was up for the rest of the day.”

“Check in tomorrow, please. I’d like to see how you’re doing.”

“Will do, thank you.” You pulled out your phone and called Jim. You knew he wasn’t at work yet.

“Y/N, what’s going on? Are you alright?” your dad asked. Worry laced his words.

“I’m alright. I got jumped by a group of gang members, but I’ll survive. I already have a great rapport with the school nurse.” You joked with him, hoping that he’d believe that none of this was your fault.

“I can be there in twenty minutes. I’ll meet you in the back parking lot.”

“Thank you, Jim. I really… Thank you.”

“Thank you for calling me, kid. Don’t need you thinking you can’t. You always can. I’ll see you soon.”

You hung up and sat in the nurse’s office until your phone buzzed that he was on his way. You thanked Holly and she gave you an enveloping hug, before warning you that you should hurry through the halls because classes were letting out.

You rushed through the halls and ignored the stares of your peers. You skirted around a big group of people and walked head-on into a towering figure. You stepped back and looked at him. He turned around and looked angry until he saw the state of your face. Of course, out of everyone you could’ve run into, it was him. But you didn’t have time to explain, so you left him with his mouth agape and ran to the back lot to slip into Jim’s waiting car and go home.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Reader wakes up after her bad first day and goes to school again. After a strenuous class with Mr. Phillips, a sudden realization about a certain Serpent, and an ever-worsening, head-splitting headache, she visits the school nurse, who’s treating the last person the reader expected to see laying in the stuffy bed.

When you woke up the next morning, your head was pounding even before you sat up. Your entire body screamed for you to lie back down. You thought briefly about calling it a day before it even started, but instead, you forced yourself to stand.

You went to the restroom and got spooked by your own face when you passed the mirror. When you looked at it in detail, you knew that you’d looked worse before, but the black/purple around your eyes and the size of your busted lip had given you pause. You wondered, as you dressed for the day in your favorite comfy shirt and well-worn pair of jeans, if the Ghoulies would have the audacity to gloat.

After you took the time to peel off the bandages from last night and brushed your teeth, you found yourself wondering if your luck had run out on your ability to heal. You’d always found your face beautiful and you hated to think that a fight that you had no part in initiating would mar it forever. Then you smiled at yourself for ever thinking that a couple scars would ruin anything about you.

You walked downstairs and found a lunch set out for you. You opened it and saw that whomever had packed it had given you your regular post-fight/mid-sickness meal of yellow miso soup with a straw and some soft, sushi rice. You’d found the meal completely by chance one day, but you’d eaten it ever since, like a personal cleansing ritual. You then saw that your mom and dad had written you a note about both of them going in to work early. They wished that you had a better second day and insisted that you call or text them if you needed anything.

When you got to school, you quickly found Mr. Phillips’s classroom and sat in the back corner, farthest away from where both the Ghoulies and the Serpents had sat in class the day before. You received numerous looks from people, who filled the seats around you, but you kept your head down, preferring to listen to your favorite guilty pleasure song on repeat until the bell rang for class to start.

Mr. Phillips came into class ready to light the fire of learning under everyone’s asses, whether any of you were up for it or not. He grilled numerous students about the prior night’s reading and assigned people parts of the second chapter of Lord of the Flies to read aloud, in front of the room. You knew that you’d be chosen because you had volunteered yesterday and sure enough, he chose you to read the end of the chapter.

As other people stood up to read, you felt worse and worse. It was a combination of the lack of pain medication, poor attempts to hydrate, stress of having to go in front of all of your peers, and the headache that had decided to rattle your brain around in your skull. You saw your cue to read and ambled up to the front of the room, narrowly avoiding tripping on any of your peers’ backpack straps or earphone cords.

You looked around as you started reading, your peers faces floating around in your vision until your eyes settled on the brown gaze of the guy from yesterday. He gave you a reassuring smile and you not only began reading with a strange fervency and felt good enough to complete the task, but you also recognized him; this Serpent was exactly who you’d thought he was yesterday, before your mind so rudely cast aside the thought.

You kept reading until the chapter was over. By the end, the boys on the island had set the entire tree line ablaze and lost a member of their group, and you had stolen enough furtive glances at Sweet Pea to fully confirm your realization. You found your seat, stuck one of your earbuds back in your ear covertly, and tuned out for the rest of the period, trying to figure out what you could say to Sweet Pea to make up for not knowing who he was to you.

First though, you decided, you would give him a test. If he responded with your nickname after you called him by his, you’d know for certain. If he didn’t, you’d have to resort to evading him for the rest of eternity. Calling someone ‘goldfish’ or 'wolfy’ when you didn’t know them would be too awkward to ever associate with them again. It was worth the possible three years of embarrassment if you found out today; he was worth it.

After class, you tried to pack up quickly and catch up with him, but by the time you had your notebook and supplies zipped in your still reluctant backpack, he and all of the Serpents were gone. You drew your face into a doleful frown, but you shrugged it off. There’d be time enough for answering questions when you didn’t feel like your head was about to burst and birth a fully grown goddess. You walked into the hallway and weaved through crowds of people to the nurse’s office.

“This because they beat that girl yesterday?” You heard Holly ask quietly, behind the thin curtain blocking whomever she was treating from your view. You felt yourself blush, knowing the girl she was talking about was you.

“Yeah, she’s- she and- yeah.” The voice was deep and low, though the person seemed pretty flustered in his response. “She didn’t deserve that.” Holly’s patient answered finally. You could hear that they were talking around something blocking their mouth and when they shifted, you heard the unmistakable sound of an ice pack.

“Well, thank you. I’m glad someone did something.” She stopped and peeked out of the curtain, smiling when she saw that I was waiting. Her eyes had a glint of mischief as she stood to close the door to her office behind you, gesturing for you to lie back on the open bed.

“Don’t worry about the report that I was supposed to write. This was clearly self-defense.” She whispered and they both chuckled.

“Thanks, Holly.” Her patient said. Holly patted them, you assumed their hand, and came around the curtain to check on you.

“Well, if it isn’t the woman of the hour.” Holly laughed lightly and pulled the curtain back, exposing a lounging Sweet Pea holding his right hand to an ice pack and holding an ice pack to his mouth with his left hand. “Your champion over here got revenge on those little punks that jumped you. I assume you know each other?” She winked and left the room for the back of her office.

“Hey, cheez-it. I’m assuming you feel about as good as you look, huh?” Sweet Pea teased, looking you over while you tried to wrap your head around the facts that he’d gotten into a fight in the approximate seven minutes since you’d seen him last and he’d just called you by the nickname that only who you thought he was could have known.

“Goldfish? You did that for me?” You asked, watching him smile his full, beautiful smile that you remembered him only using when the two of you were alone.

“Well, yeah. Like I told Holly, you didn’t deserve that shit. And I didn’t think you were up for beating their asses right now. I took up the mantle. You can go ahead and thank me anytime now.” He smirked and sat up, pulling his legs over the side of his bed and walking over to you.

He held his arms out slightly and you mirrored him from your position on the bed, letting him pull you into a hug that told you a bunch of things that he wasn’t saying. It was as if the second you touched, you could feel his excitement at your return, his fear at seeing you raw and bloodied, and his anger that you’d ever had to leave him in the first place.

“You two are adorable. I’m assuming this is the girl that you told me about last year, Sweet Pea?” Holly asked. When your embrace broke, Sweet Pea looked at Holly and nodded, sitting back on his bed and placing his hands back on the packs of ice.

You looked over to see that Holly had brought you both bottles of fruit punch and cheese snacks. “I have signed you both out of classes. I think you have some catching up to do. After I see both of you eat and drink some, you’re free to go.”

“Thank you, Holly. You deserve a fucking medal,” Sweet Pea said grabbing the snacks and juice eagerly.

“Oh I already have one of those, but if you want to write a letter to the superintendent for me to get a raise, feel free to do so.” She laughed and set your portions of the snacks on the bed. “Are these alright for you, sweetheart?” You nodded and took some of the small, cheesy fish out of their container. You downed them and chased them with some punch, savoring the tastes of your childhood.

“I don’t know, Holly. You might have to go hunt for a bag of Cheez-Its. I seem to remember someone always bitching about Goldfish being an inferior snack.” You rolled your eyes and looked over at Sweet Pea, who was chuckling to himself.

“I’m sorry I don’t like almost tasteless crackers that claim to taste like cheese when they clearly don’t. At least Cheez-its are properly marketed and aren’t just a carton of lies.” You felt a cracker pelt the skin of your arm and watched as Sweet Pea threw another one at you, which fell to the floor.

“Hey now, I just swept. You eat and go before you trash my office,” Holly snapped from her desk in the back of the room, throwing you a playful look.

“It won’t happen again. Sorry,” you muttered, shaking your head and laughing at Sweet Pea’s snarky face. You didn’t know how you hadn’t recognized him, but you could see him now. You were both ten and eleven again, arguing about cheese snacks and pretending to just be kids for as long of a time as you could eke out in a day together.

When you had both finished your snacks, you picked up the pieces that had fallen and threw the garbage into the can. You grabbed your bags, waved goodbye to Holly, and walked out of the office with your heads held high. You got out into the hallway before you lost your friend to his previous state of anonymity. You looked around to see why he’d made a dramatic transition and saw that the Ghoulies were peering at you from across the hallway, blocking the exits.

You grabbed his wrist and led the way down the hall, pushing aside the Ghoulies that were jeering and blocking your path. Because of your leadership, you and Sweet Pea got to the car lot without any incidents. You took a deep breath and sat on the stairs, pulling your phone out to tell your parents that you were walking home.

“You want to go somewhere and talk, Y/N?” Sweet Pea asked just before you sent your message.

“You have somewhere in mind?”

“My place. It’s quiet and we can just chill for a while. Honestly, I’d like to talk about some things before I meet up with Fangs and Toni later.”

“Sure. How far is it? I would like to say I can walk forever, but I got a little lightheaded walking here from Holly’s office.” You pulled your face into a slight grimace before you heard a low, rumbling chortle from Sweet Pea.

“Oh, birdy, you’re cute. Come on, I need to introduce you to someone.” He slowly pulled you to standing and steadied you before guiding you, with a reassuring hand around your waist, over to a long line of motorcycles. He stopped beside an industrial grey Harley-Davidson and smiled as you looked her over.

“Y/N, meet Rachel. Rachel will be our ride to my place this afternoon.”

“Rachel? Really?” You laughed. “You could have at least named her after your actual favorite character. Phoebe would have suited her too.” You teased, taking his outstretched hand and wrapping yourself behind him.

“Shut up, birdy.” He scolded, squeezing your knees and backing Rachel up into the lane of the parking lot.

You rested your hands on his sides and readied yourself. You’d ridden with your dad before, but you had no idea if Sweet Pea was anywhere as competent on the road as Jim was. With great pleasure and pride in your friend’s abilities, you found that Sweet Pea handled himself quite nicely on the road, even over the short, angled stretch of gravel that preceded the entrance to the Sunnyside Trailer Park.

Sweet Pea unlocked the door to his trailer and held it open for you. You expected to have to take a lot of sensorial information all at once, but instead you found that the living space of his trailer was almost too bare.

He had a comfy-looking couch and a small combination TV with a VCR slot sitting on a coffee table in the living room. A two-seat dining room table set sat in the small area leading into his kitchen and his kitchen was clean and empty. No pictures or personality lined any of the wood-paneled walls and a dated wallpaper was peeling up at the edges of every corner. Sweet Pea sighed and ushered you back to his bedroom.

While calling the living space and kitchen spartan would have over-sold them, his room was an explosion of him. Photos and polaroids were tacked up all over his room along with posters of motorcycles, Michael Jordan, sports stars you didn’t recognize, and a poor quality, dollar-store calendar that sat above a messy desk. You walked around his room, viewing the photos. You saw artistic shots of scenery around Riverdale and random, everyday items. Sweet Pea and two of the Serpents you’d seen him talking to featured prominently.

“Toni,” he came over and pointed out the girl with the pink hair in the picture you were looking at. “She took most of these. I asked her to make copies for me. She let me fuck around with her camera, but most of my shots were over-exposed or grainy, so I just took the ones I liked that she took. And Fangs,” he pointed at the short-haired handsome one that had given you a warm smile yesterday, “he’s the one that drew those Serpent icons over there in the corner. He has this ability to get exactly what he sees in his head to come out on paper. I’m jealous of him for that, though I can beat him in pool or shooting hoops and make myself feel better about it.”

You both chuckled and you continued around the room. You knew he was watching you from his place at the foot of his bed, but you found you didn’t mind, which was a welcome feeling after being put under the microscope by everyone else the last two days.

As you looked through his treasures and memories, you felt happy for him for finding people that he obviously loved. You genuinely did, but that led you to feel like you were encroaching on something secret and special, like you shouldn’t be here with him right now. You felt like you should leave him to the life that he built in your five-year absence and disregard the four year friendship that you had had before you left. Ignore how inseparable you’d been in favor of letting him be happy with these people, in favor of being further removed from him when you were so close in proximity.

When you thought about the possibility that he didn’t have a place for you in his life anymore, you felt overwhelmed. For whatever reason, you had had a fantasy in your head that you’d find him again and you would both work on rekindling your friendship. You had thought that maybe he’d left your spot warm and that you, with a bit of work, could take it back, but you now realized that your thoughts had been entirely selfish. He didn’t have a place for you on his walls and he most likely didn’t have a place for you in his heart either.

You chose to focus on a collection of polaroids in the corner and pull yourself together. You willed your tears to go away. He had invited you here to talk, not to tell you what you wanted to hear. He wasn’t going to tell you what you yourself felt from his own lips; he’d found his replacements for you, even if you had never found anyone that had the mere semblance of similarity to him for you. You shuddered before you rolled your shoulders back and returned to ogling the photos.

You heard Sweet Pea get up and open a screechy wooden drawer in his dresser.

“I keep you in here.”

He said it so impossibly quiet that it took you a moment to register that he’d spoken at all. When you did finally understand what he said, you turned and walked over to him. You settled on his bed, sitting cross-legged across from him.

A wooden box sat between the two of you; you recognized it because it was the twin of your own. The lid of the box was cast in a thick layer of epoxy that suspended a collection of feathers and flowers that you’d collected together. Jim had made the boxes for both of you, as a gift to give to each other to put your memories in before you’d left.

“I had you up on my walls when I first moved in, but I had to put you away. It- it hurt too much to see you everyday.” He looked you in the eye and gave a sad smile before he undid the latch and pulled out a layer of photos that still had bits of tape on their edges.

He looked at each picture before he handed it to you. Pictures of the times you did art and activities at his Nan and Pop’s, went fishing with Maggie and Jim, screwed around in the photo booth at the old arcade, and stood still for pictures that the foster parents you had shared made you stand for passed before your eyes. You handed them back to him and he tucked them in at the bottom of the pile gingerly.

When you’d gone through the whole pile of photos while sharing small smiles and short remarks, Sweet Pea pulled out the top tray of the box and retrieved the bottom one. He smiled and asked, “You remember this?” You looked at the yogurt lid he handed you and nodded.

“Of course. It was our first morning together with the Johnsons. We were so reluctant to speak that we didn’t tell them that we hated the flavor of yogurt they gave us. I asked you for your peach and you thanked me because you wanted my strawberry. I’m surprised you kept it.”

“I kept the most important things.” He took the yogurt lid back and you saw a white, lacy knee sock in the tray. You chuckled and grabbed it, seeing that it was still stained with your blood.

You remembered pleading the older boys to let you and Sweet Pea, who was a year younger than you, play tag with them. One of the older boys said that you would have to play on the girls’ team because you weren’t tough or fast enough. You pushed the boy over and, when he got back to his feet, he told the others you were in for this game. You had played so hard that you didn’t realize that you had fallen and gotten gravel in your knee until Sweet Pea had pointed out the blood streaming down your leg into your sock.

“That’s the day I knew what a badass my best friend was. You did better than half of our team at taking those fifth-graders down and you bled for it. You remember how Timmy cried when someone stepped on his finger? But there you were, blood running down your leg and you were still ready to go in the next round,” Sweet Pea gushed, grabbing the sock from you and folding it neatly before placing it back in the tray.

He pulled out a handful of shiny, golden feathers from the dead eagle you’d found when you had run away together when you were eight. You had just been placed with a new foster couple, Maggie and Jim, which was the first placement that Sweet Pea hadn’t been placed with you.

You both decided to go out on your own if you couldn’t live together and had met up at school during lunch to run away. Sweet Pea had filled his bag with snacks, clean underwear, a compass, and a map and you had a blanket to share, water, a roll of toilet paper, and some cash that you’d stolen from Jim’s wallet and Maggie’s purse. You planned to make it to New York City and find somewhere to live together. Instead, you got three miles from the school and found yourselves horribly lost and tired.

You set your bags down near the riverbank and took a pee break. When you both came back to your stuff, you looked around and found a dead eagle laying on the edge of Sweetwater River. You both poked at it and took an array of lengths of its golden feathers. You sat down beside it and cried. Sweet Pea sat behind you and held you, asking you what was wrong.

“We can’t run away, goldfish. We’re kids. What are we gonna do in New York? What are we gonna do now?” You had asked hopelessly.

“I was hoping that we could go back home. I like my new family and Maggie and Jim really seem to love you.” He had answered quietly, biting into a string cheese that he’d pulled out of his pocket.

“But we aren’t together!”

“No, but you know we only have ten more years 'til we can move in together and I bet when we are reincarbonated, we’ll still find each other. But I’ll be a wolf, so you’d better be something cool too.”

You had laughed and leaned into him, butting him with your head. “Of course I’ll be cool. I could be reincarnated as a naked mole rat and still be cooler than you.” You had stopped then and looked at the lazy autumn sky. Then you said, “I’ll be a bird of prey, like a falcon. I’ll fly above you while you run and we can hunt together. We’ll be the freest, awesomest best friends ever.”

You smiled as you handed him the golden feathers back. He held one briefly and ran it across his jaw under his chin, smiling at the feeling, before he put it back in his tray. The last thing he pulled out was a small, quarter-sized play token from your last visit to the arcade the week before you left.

He looked at you and took your hands in his, dropping the token in one of your palms and closing your fingers around it. He hesitated a moment, holding your hands before pulling his hands back into his lap. He cast his eyes down at the box between you before speaking.

“I kept this, not because I wanted to remember the way my heart broke when you told me you were leaving, but because I thought that this was the last thing that I’d have to remind me of you. Literally the last token of our friendship. But it isn’t now… or at least it doesn’t have to be.” He looked up at you earnestly. “We’ve changed a lot in the years we’ve been apart, but not so much, I think, that we couldn’t pick up where we left off. That- that’s what I wanted to tell you.”

You let out your breath audibly and took his large hands in yours. “I’m sorry that I had to ever leave you. And that you ended up here, alone. I have wanted nothing more than to find you and be friends with you again.” You sniffed and tried to keep your tears back. “This is going to sound so selfish, but I was so terrified that you were going to tell me that you didn’t want to see me. Or that your life didn’t have room for me in it anymore.”

“You’ll always be a part of my life, birdy. We’re endgame, remember? Even our reincarnations will find each other.” He smiled his perfect smile that spread across almost the entirety of the lower half of his face. “That’s just how it’s going to be and you better be cool with that.” He gulped and you saw that his eyes were redlined too. You smiled and rubbed one of the tears that escaped his reluctant eyes.

“Oh, wolfy. I’ve missed you.”

“I’ve missed you too. I’m glad you’re back.”

“Me too, even if everything seems to be a different shade than I remember it. I mean even this, with you, is something new.”

“But when have you ever passed up a challenge, Y/N?”

“Never,” you smiled, pulling him in for a tight embrace and feeling a flood of hope rush through every part of your body. It made you shiver and hold him to you tighter as you finally broke in his arms.

You had spent, at least, the last three years with an unhealthy sense of apathy and distinct lack of belief in a future for yourself. Now that you felt the fire start up in your soul again, you knew that you would do whatever it took to keep it burning. You knew that the young man in front of you, a taller, stretched out version of the boy that would always be your best friend, was going to be there at your side again. For the first time in a long time, you found that you could breathe and that you wanted to keep doing so.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> After a crappy night at the Wyrm for both the Reader and Sweet Pea, Sweet Pea has it out with her and clears the air.

On a Friday night in late October, your phone rang. Seeing that it was Toni, you debated answering it; it had been a long week and you were looking forward to a quiet night of homework and jamming out to your favorite band before curling into bed at a reasonable hour. You thought about blowing off your friends but felt a pang of guilt about the fact that if it was Sweet Pea calling, you would have answered it in a heartbeat.

It wasn’t that you hadn’t come to care for Toni and Fangs in many of the same ways as you did Sweet Pea, but there were pieces of yourself that you still kept from them.

Fangs was an articulate, thoughtful person who had the unfortunate tendency to get riled up when he and Sweet Pea were together, usually because of Sweet Pea’s provocation. Toni, however, was more grounded, sarcastic, and motivated to address issues with her words than her fists. The three of you had butt heads a couple times in the beginning, but had since met a peaceful understanding when it was clear that you were just trying to be a part of the group and not lead it.

The phone rang again and pulled your attention back to it. You answered.

On the other end was a lot of commotion and loud music. Toni shouted, “Y/N! Why aren’t you at the Wyrm? We’re all here and it’s the only place to be. Close your books and get over here, girl!”

“I don’t know, Toni. I’m not really feeling it,” you replied, hoping she’d, for once, take no for an answer but knowing she wouldn’t.

“Kasey’s here and he asked me about when you’d get here. He is looking fine tonight! You know he won’t ask forever,” she teased.

She knew how big of a crush you had on the junior, who happened to be a Serpent. Everyone you knew from your childhood had grown up well, but Kasey… He was something else. Kasey’s eyes were your favorite color and his jawline was so pronounced, you sometimes thought that it would cut you if you ever gleaned to touch it. He kept his hair neatly trimmed and his body was tight. Your stomach fluttered when you thought about him.

You sighed and told Toni, “Fine! I’ll be there in half an hour. Don’t let anyone go anywhere.”

“You got it girl. See ya soon!”

You hung up and shut your homework inside your math book. After pulling your favorite flirtatious outfit out of your closet, you fixed your hair into the style that did the shape of your face the most justice. You put on a smokey eye that complemented the colors of your outfit and finished with a coat of chapstick on your lips. You leaned over the bathroom counter to look at the tiny scar by your right eye and smiled, grateful that your face had healed as well as Holly had said it would.

After flirting with Kasey for a few weeks, you were hoping that he’d finally ask you out. You thought he had asked you out to the Wyrm when you had spoken at lunch, but ended up confused on whether he was asking you out or just asking if you’d be there. You kicked yourself now for not just asking him for clarification.

The entrance of the Whyte Wyrm was partially blocked by bodies smoking too close to the double doors. After you weaved around them through their clouds of smoke, you walked into the dark, neon-lit bar coughing and adjusting to the smells of leather, booze, and heavy body scents both naturally made and artificially applied.

After a moment to catch your breath and spot your friends, you walked over to the pool hall and found a seat next to Toni, who was watching the pool game intently. Sweet Pea and Kasey were playing and Fangs was acting as an unofficial announcer. He came around the table and grabbed your waist, hugging you tightly. His skin wafted the stench of alcohol and you laughed a little at his drunken touches.

Fangs drunk was only an overtly flirtatious version of Fangs, whereas drunk you was a disastrous puddle of self-doubt, negativity, and clinginess; you resolved not to show anyone that side, not until you knew you had someone to peel you off the floor and take you home.

You looked around at the rest of your friends to judge their state. Toni was pretty drunk because she looked simultaneously ready to hop on the dance-floor and drop to sleep with her low hanging eyelids and waving head. Sweet Pea was drunk enough to be playing pool poorly, which meant he was sauced. Finally, Kasey seemed only slightly tipsy if he had had anything at all. It was entirely possible that he hadn’t, since you couldn’t recall ever seeing him drink.

When the game was over, Sweet Pea came over to the table and finished off Toni’s drink without a word to either of you, before he went over to talk to a girl at the other end of the bar. You felt pissed that he hadn’t so much as acknowledged your presence, but this week hadn’t been the best for you two.

Your face must have said so, because Kasey came over, smiling, and asked, “Everything ok, Y/N?”

“Yeah, yeah. Just thinking. How are you?” You gushed, watching him run his fingers around the back of his neck and rub it gently.

“I’m doing better now that I got to see you. I wasn’t sure you were coming and you didn’t seem to get that I had asked you out but you’re here so, yeah.” He laughed and then asked, “You want to rack up and play or get a drink or something?”

“I don’t drink, but I can show you a better game than Sweet Pea probably.” He nodded and started plunking the balls into the triangular rack in the center of the table. You put the balls in their correct order in the pyramid and tightened them up, readying them to be broken.

“I have to warn you that I am lucky that Sweet Pea was so drunk. He whoops my ass every time we play. I was shocked that he scratched.” Kasey shrugged and broke, starting the game.

“He scratched so he could go talk to Regina over there,” Toni said, pointing at Sweet Pea and a blonde girl, who you’d seen in class before, flirting. Jealousy started to sneak into your heart when Toni stood and dragged Fangs off to a booth in the back corner of the bar.

You rolled your eyes at your reaction to Sweet Pea flirting and took your shot. There was no reason that he couldn’t and it wasn’t as though you weren’t doing the same exact thing. The difference was that he had follow-through. It wasn’t often that he got carried away with a girl, but when he did, he always ended up with them for the night. You didn’t see yourself ever taking the plunge with Kasey, as much as your body wanted to, because you felt nothing for him. It really didn’t help that your best friend thought Kasey was a douchebag.

The game continued fairly evenly matched between the two of you. Kasey wasn’t kidding about being awful and you were glad, because it meant that you didn’t have to apologize for being so bad yourself. On one of your next turns, you scratched and Kasey threw you an evil grin, grabbing the cue ball from the pocket it fell into.

“Yeah, you go ahead and gloat, wise guy. You aren’t really doing any better than me.”

“True, but at least we’re cute, huh?” Kasey joked, grabbing his cue and missing his shot despite the huge benefit of your scratch. He feigned exasperation and shook his head, cursing his awful shot.

You walked over to him and said, “Yeah, it’s a really good thing we’re cute.” You patted him on the back and scootched him over with a hip bump so you could line up your shot.

He came around behind you, grabbing your waist and pressing his whole body against you, moving his head to see where you were pointing your cue.

“What are you doing, Kasey?” You asked, feeling yourself tense at his touch.

“Seeing where you’re aiming. You’re obviously better than me. I thought I might get some insight from back here.” He was flirting, and you knew it was probably harmless, but there was a bad feeling deep in your gut when he touched you. The last time you hadn’t listened to yourself was almost fatal.

“Please don’t touch me. Not without asking.” You declared, shrugging his touch and shooting the ball into the pocket.

“Sorry. I-” He stopped, shrugged his shoulders and said, “Okay. It won’t happen again.”

“You what?” You asked, pulling your mouth into a hard line with your eyebrows narrowed. “I want to know.” Dread creeped into your body, nipping first at your fingers before slowly crawling to your stomach and settling there.

“I thought that given how flirty you are with your friends, especially the giant, that you’d be down. I mean, really, the four of you are clothes away from being an orgy half the time you hang out.” He jeered and you saw an ugliness in his eyes that you couldn’t unsee.

“Well, I guess I’m cool with them touching me because they aren’t douchebags.” You tried to staunch the fire that was building in your belly and hoped he’d stop talking before it got too big to ignore.

“Right, says the girl that chooses to hang out with literally the biggest manwhore, most annoying twink, and loud-mouthed bicurious slut that the Serpents have to offer. You aren’t worth going toe to toe with hot head over there, even if you would be a good lay. I’ll let you and your idiotic manboy fuck it out.” He snickered and turned away from you.

You took a breath and cracked your knuckles. You tapped his shoulder so he’d turn his smug face toward you and sent a solid, formidable right hook into his face. He went down hard and passed out. You stood above him, stretching your hand and fingers while you waited for him to wake up. It had been a while since you had been in a fight and your body shook with anticipation, itching to do more damage.

When you saw him open his eyes a few seconds later, you stepped on his crotch so you knew his focus was on you and hissed, “I don’t need anybody to fight my fights for me, asshole. Say whatever you feel you need to about me to justify that you went down in one punch, but my friends- my friends are beyond reproach.”

You walked away and pulled Fangs and Toni, who had gathered near the scene, over to the booth that the four of you had shared many wonderful evenings in. The jitters coursing through your body slowly subsided and you began to breathe normally again. You looked around at all of the faces that were watching your every move and gave them a cool smirk. You didn’t see Sweet Pea anywhere amongst them.

“Damn, girl. No wonder those Ghoulies haven’t messed with you since that first day. I didn’t know we had such a badass in our midst!” Toni babbled, plopping into the seat next to you, making you sit closest to the center of the table.

“Sweet Pea said you were a fighter. I don’t know why we ever doubted him. I had this feeling about you being best friend material and now I know for sure,” Fangs said, wrapping his arm around your shoulder and kissing your forehead.

“It’s no big deal. Either of you would have done the same thing if he’d said that shit to you.”

“Sorry, Y/N. I had no idea that he was actually a douchebag; I just figured Sweet Pea called him that because he didn’t like the way that he was looking at you.” Toni reached around your arms and hugged your side. She looked at your red hand and pulled it onto the table. “Wow, you hit him hard. Did anything in there break?”

“I doubt it. My hands are so used to punching people I would honestly be shocked if anything was actually fucked up.” You laughed.

All three of you laughed and joked until Regina, the girl Sweet Pea had been flirting with, came over to your table.

You all quieted down and she said, “I don’t know who to tell, but the tall guy is on the floor of the bathroom crying. We were gonna hook up but when we got in there, he just hit the floor crying…” She trailed off and turned away from your table, finding her friends at the bar and laughing, no doubt regaling them with the whole story. You and Fangs looked at each other and scooted out from behind the table, telling Toni to stay put.

When you reached the bathroom, Fangs knocked. You could hear Sweet Pea quietly sobbing and when the door was opened, you saw that he was sitting against the wall between the urinal and the sink. You briefly wondered why anyone would choose to hook up in the bathroom of the dive bar before you remembered how drunk Sweet Pea was earlier.

Fangs kneeled beside him and spoke in a hushed voice. He got a little information from Sweet Pea before he stood and walked over to you. “I’m going to go get him some water. You willing to take him home? I’m drunk and I know that you didn’t have anything… if not we can ask someone else or something. I know he’s been weird with you all week.” Fangs’s concern was palpable and it made you smile to know that he cared so much, for both you and Sweet Pea.

“I’m cool with taking him home as long as he has something to sit on. I do not want whatever he is sitting in or on in my car.”

“Sounds good. He can sit on a trash bag that I can get from Hog Eye. I’ll be right back to help you get him out there. Did you leave anything at the table?”

“No, I have my wallet and keys on me.”

“Okay, I’ll be back in a jiffy.”

When Fangs left, you took his place on the relatively clean patch of floor next to Sweet Pea. He was still sobbing, but he looked up from the floor to look at you. His face changed and pulled tighter; you prepared for him to tell you off.

“What are you doing here? I didn’t ask for your help. Shouldn’t you be getting the douchebag off instead of getting me off the floor? Or do you just like seeing me like this? You sure as fuck weren’t here any of the other times, so why are you here now? You gonna leave me again? Huh? That’s what you do, right?” He stopped and threw the hand that you had placed on his shoulder off.

This was the first time that he had been openly angry at you and you knew he needed to say his piece, even if it hurt.

He continued. “You lull people into a sense of security and love and then you rip their hearts out and leave them bleeding on the floor, right? I mean you did it to me. I am sure in the 5 years you had away from here you did it to someone else. You… you were the person I counted on. You were my best friend, my sister, and the love of my life and then you just… you left me.” Sweet Pea snorted and looked at you with an anger in his face that you’d never expected to be on the receiving end of.

“I hate you. I hate you for leaving and I hate you for being back here now, for being my friend again. I feel everything I felt when you were here all over again, the hope, the love, everything, but I know I can’t tell you because you never felt that for me. You were my everything and I was… what? A convenience? You figured you needed a friend and a partner in crime and I happened to be there? I mean did you even miss me? You sure as hell didn’t call or write. I didn’t hear anything about you until I heard one of the guys saying that Cardigan Jim’s kid was in some institution and that she was barely hanging on. FP told me to leave it alone- ordered me to, so I had no choice but to ignore everything I was feeling and stuff it down.”

You heard the door creep open and you turned the person entering it away, hoping that Fangs would be back soon. You sat back down and met his eyes again, not knowing if he was done or if he still had something left to say.

“You broke my heart, Y/N. I have been trying to get over it, to let myself feel what I’ll feel regardless, but I have to know because I can’t feel the way I do and not know if it’s just me. Do you want me? In your life and in every way, every part of me. Because if you don’t, I can’t have you around. I’m already wading chest-deep in shit, so I can’t handle being hurt anymore. But if you do, if you do want me, I need you to know that I don’t want to just be your friend. I want to be your everything, just as you are for me.” He looked at you expectantly, while you tried to piece together a cohesive answer for him.

Before you could react or say anything else, Fangs came through the door and helped you take Sweet Pea down the block to your car. Of course it had to be when Sweet Pea was expecting you to answer something so important.

You drove in silence to Sunnyside and parked in front of his trailer. You held your hand out for his key and he gave it to you after he fished it from his vacuous pocket. Once you were both inside, you grabbed him a clean pair of boxers and a T-shirt and pushed him into the bathroom. You started the water and told him to shower because he smelled like a urinal.

“Will you be here when I get out?” Sweet Pea asked, having sobered immensely since the bar.

“Yes, I will.”

You waited on the edge of his bed until you heard the water stop and the bathroom door opened a couple minutes later. Sweet Pea shuffled in, his hair dripping wet, and sat down next to you.

“Why were you crying at the Wyrm? You looked happy. You know, with her.” You asked, looking over at him.

“I… I can’t tell you. It’s too-”

“I won’t laugh or anything. I still owe you for covering for me when I farted during the prayer at that one Thanksgiving.” You interjected, hoping that he would tell you.

“At the Johnson’s. Damn, I can’t believe I haven’t done anything embarrassing enough to make up for that since then.” You both laughed.

“You have a couple times, but they were freebies.” You smiled and patted his hand that was resting between the two of you. He flipped it over and you laced your fingers between his, careful not to agitate your bruised knuckles.

“When we got to the bathroom, I looked at her and she- she said that she could be anyone I wanted her to be, but she wasn’t. She wasn’t you. That’s why.” Sweet Pea whispered, his low, despondent tone barely audible.

“Sweet Pea, I want you. I know I didn’t answer before when you asked, but I didn’t want to with Fangs hanging around. But I do. I want you. As much or as little of you as you’re willing to give me. I can’t make up for leaving you, but I hope that you know it wasn’t my choice. I’m sorry that I broke your heart, but I want you to know that leaving you, it broke mine too.”

You looked over at him and he met your eyes with his intense, brown ones. He looked angry for a second before his face calmed and he squeezed your hand. You winced and he smirked, raising your clasped hands into the light so he could see the damage.

“Douchebag show his true colors?”

“You know it.” Moments passed in silence and it felt oddly comforting just being there with him.

“Will you stay?” The question was soft and earnest and made a sad smile spread across your face.

“As long as you have an extra toothbrush.” He nodded and took you into the bathroom, pulling out an extra still in the plastic.

You wondered if it had been for someone else until, because he knew you, Sweet Pea said, “I bought it for when mine wears out. Just so you know.” He met your eye and smiled, before he turned and went back to his bedroom.

After you brushed your teeth, relieved yourself, and changed into one of his shirts, you slid under the covers he held up and snuggled against his warm body. You remembered cuddling up with him on nights after you had forced him to watch a scary movie or either of you had gotten disappointing news. But this felt different, and not just because it was the first time that he was large enough to be a comfortable big spoon.

He didn’t want to let you go and wanted to spend his last waking moments holding you, if only for the reassurance that you were really there.

And you were happy to oblige.


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> After a disastrous dinner with your parents, you and Sweet Pea go to a party at the quarry, where you tell him how you ended up in a hospital, and end up back in his trailer, being asked something that you didn't see coming.

"Your parents are inviting me to dinner?" Sweet Pea swept his hands through his hair and rolled his shoulders back, standing up from where he had been laying on your bed. "Were we not as sneaky as we thought we were or something? Should I expect to be yelled at?"

"It's nothing bad. They said that you spend enough time here, you should at least get a hot, home-cooked meal out of it," you laughed, patting the bed beside you and watching him slowly ease back onto the edge. You reached out and ran your fingertips along his upper-back, feeling him relax under your touch. The two of you had made sleepovers part of your routine in the recent weeks and your parents had taken notice, though they promised you that tonight wasn't about that.

"So it's an actual invitation then?"

"Yes, wolfy. You are going to sit and eat lasagna with me and my parents tonight," you said, adjusting the books on your lap and continuing to read where you left off in your copy of Fahrenheit 451. "Oh, and they don't know that we're... seeing each other? Not that I've kept it from them, just that we, the two of us, are still just figuring it out."

"It's only been three weeks, birdy. You can't expect us, who've never dated before, to have anything 'figured out,'" he said using air quotes to punctuate the last couple words. You hated when people did that and he knew it, which is why he flashed a huge, snarky smile as he sank back and rested his head across your thighs, narrowly missing the edge of your notebook.

You drew your face into a scowl and said, "I don't expect anything anymore. Haven't for a long time." He looked up at you from his own copy of the book and made a face, thinking of a retort, no doubt. "Unless the next thing you say is better than a kiss, just kiss me and leave it alone, wolfy."

He hesitated, briefly, before he turned, propped himself on his elbow, and pulled you in for a warm kiss. "Fine, birdy. Challenge accepted."

You couldn't help but giggle at the resolve in his voice. He truly meant that he would make every effort to make this evening pleasant for the four of you. You turned back to your homework unperturbed; though your stomach dropped when you heard Maggie's sing-songy call to dinner an hour later. There was no way of knowing what was waiting for the two of you downstairs.

The dining room table had the papers, reports, and books that were usually strewn about neatly stacked on one side. Maggie had set bamboo placemats and table settings in the four unobstructed spots and gestured to you to come help her move the meal to the center of the crowded tabletop. Sweet Pea grabbed the pitcher of water and the stack of cups that Jim handed him and placed them on the table, before Jim gestured for him to go ahead and sit.

You brought over the vegetable medley and set it down in front of Sweet Pea, who perked an eyebrow before asking, "Is this your not-so-subtle hint to eat my veggies?"

"No, not at all. I just didn't want them in front of me," you laughed. You pulled out your chair next to Sweet Pea and sank into the spongy, padded seat.

Maggie brought the pan of lasagna over and set it down, carefully avoiding being burnt from the heat of the ceramic dish. The smell of browned cheese and warm, oregano-forward marinara wafted, causing your mouth to water. Even though you had the meal at least twice a month, it never managed to disappoint. Your parents joked that you were probably Garfield in a past life, to which you always nodded and dug into the dish, stealing as many of the crusty cheese crunchies that coalesced at the edges of the pan. You resisted the urge to do so as you sat with Sweet Pea at the table.

After everyone had some plated, you all dug in. Between work and school, the day had been entirely too long. A silence settled upon the table as each of you slurped, sliced, and lapped up the meal. Maggie scooped a heaping pile of the broccoli and cauliflower medley onto you and Sweet Pea's respective plates, which caused a massive eye-roll from both of you. You had both spent an unfortunate amount of time sitting at the table long after dinner had finished until you ate your salad or veggies, the memory of which led you to meet each other's eyes and smile.

"So, I went to the Wyrm and heard some interesting news. Did you know Sweet Pea was at the head of Jughead Jones's Gauntlet?" Jim asked, trying to strike up a conversation. You looked at him, wondering where he was headed with his line of questioning. Being the daughter of two investigative journalists had made you wary of everything, even more innocuous questions than what had just been asked. You felt dread fill your body.

"Yeah, I volunteered to. I've been at the head of every Gauntlet for a while now, at least for younger initiates," Sweet Pea offered, meeting everyone's eyes before dipping them back to his plate.

"You're definitely one of the more mentioned young Serpents. You get into a lot of fights from what I've heard," Jim added, watching Sweet Pea closely. You shot Jim a look, but he seemed unfazed.

"I do." Sweet Pea's quiet, but noticeably curt response struck a nerve with Jim. He met the older man's eye, holding his gaze.

"I'm sure they've been justified, Jim. We can't really talk. You remember the shit we got into?" Maggie offered, trying to placate the rising tempers. The men just stared at each other, sizing each other up.

You stepped in. "I promised dinner, not a show, Dad. Leave it alone."

"I'm not trying to start anything. Just—" he waved his hands in an offhanded manner and scooped another bite of food—"saying what I've heard. Have to be informed of things, you know. Like you asking FP about going through initiation before he was picked up by the police."

"What?" Sweet Pea broke his stare and looked at you in shock.

"Yeah, I asked him. Toni brought it up and I think it would be a good move. I wouldn't get called a 'Serpent Slut' or anything else anymore. Besides, you're all a part of them. Is it so outlandish that I would want to be a part of the family?"

"It makes sense to me. Jim and I talked about it a month or so ago when you two started hanging out again." Maggie shifted in her seat, obviously uncomfortable. "I don't mind you being a Serpent, but that means you have to do the Dance, which I'm not sure you're... ready for."

"I talked to FP about that too when we spoke. He said he'd be willing to run me through a female-only Gauntlet instead, you know in light of my past." You looked at your parents and then glanced at Sweet Pea, who was confused. You had, at every opportunity, skirted around exactly what had happened in Seattle.

"So you get raped and this weak ass King is going to just change the rules for you? Every other woman has had to do the Dance. It's tradition. It isn't like FP to just—" Jim stopped, noticing Maggie's glare. He was a proud Serpent; though his attire consisted of more cardigans than leather these days, his youth was spent in the fiery, drug-addled heyday of the gang.

"Welp, thanks for that, Jim." You stared him down, watching him realize that he had just said something far worse than wrong. You cast your gaze to Sweet Pea, who had processed the info and looked mad on your behalf. "I'm sorry I didn't tell you. I wasn't really ready to make it real by talking about it with you," you whispered.

"I figured you'd tell me what happened eventually. Sorry he just forced your hand."

"I can't- I can't believe I just said that." Jim stood and braced himself on the back of his chair. "There is no reason that you should have to do that Dance, I just- I'm an asshole."

"No arguments here." Your mom grabbed Jim's plate and shoved it into his chest forcefully. "Go finish in our room. You said you weren't going to get into anything."

"No, Mags. I'm not going anywhere. Our daughter is joining a gang because of that boy and I need to know that she isn't going into this with the expectations that some orphaned, transient fire-starter is always going to be there for her," Jim responded, throwing his plate back onto the table and slumping into his seat.

"Your daughter," you began, choosing your words carefully while you fought the anger boiling your blood, "is unbelievably livid right now. Your daughter has been wanting to be a part of the Serpents since she was little, something that you deprived her of when you moved your family across the fucking country. Your daughter is fucking done with this farce of a dinner and is going to a party that she cancelled on because she was promised a pleasant evening at home. And we're taking the fucking lasagna." You grabbed the dish and wrapped it in plastic wrap with a huff, feeling the heat in the ceramic burn your hands.

Sweet Pea followed you to the edge of the kitchen before he turned and said, "And for the record, I might be a fire-starter and pick fights and head Gauntlets, but I love your daughter. I won't let anything happen to her, which, as I just found out, is something that you couldn't even manage to do." He cracked his knuckles angrily and turned toward you. "I'll meet you outside. Here, I'll take that. Go get ready, yeah?" You nodded, handed him the dish, and kissed his cheek, running upstairs.

The gathering at the quarry was a low-key scene, which helped calm your anger. Sweet Pea set the lasagna on the refreshments table and grabbed your hand, leading you to an open couch. Toni and Fangs were nowhere to be seen, so you knew that you could talk undisturbed.

"Will you just tell me how you ended up at the hospital? That's the part that I really wanted to know," Sweet Pea asked quietly after reading your face.

"I was raped last year, and I tried to deal. I- I tried to move on, but he gloated a little too much one day and I snapped. I beat his face in, literally. I tried to kill myself after, but it didn't take. When I woke up, I was in a facility and I couldn't leave until I lied enough that they believed I wasn't a threat to myself or others." You took a deep breath and scratched your forehead, feeling uneasy talking about it, even though you trusted Sweet Pea with your life, let alone your worst moments.

He was quiet for a long time, long enough for the song playing across the lot to change twice.

"Do you still want to die?" he asked finally.

"Almost every day, but it isn't anyone's fault or something I seriously consider. It's just my stupid brain not realizing that I'm happy." You brushed his bangs into their signature curl and brushed a stray hair from his cheek.

"Is there anything I can- anything that will help?"

"Nothing besides just being you." You stopped and shook your head, looking away from him and trying to hold back your tears. "I'm sorry that dinner was an ambush. Leave it to Jim to ruin something as beautiful as lasagna."

He laughed and stroked your cheek with his long thumb. "Nothing can ruin lasagna, Y/N. Especially if we have some here before the scavengers take it all," he said, nodding toward the group of people descending upon the exposed dish.

You both stood and walked, hand in hand, over to the plates and grabbed generous helpings of the pasta. When you sat back down to eat, Toni, Fangs, and Jughead, still despondent from Betty and his most recent breakup, were coming onto the lot. You waved them over and ate as much of your plate as you could before they got to you.

"Hey you two. I didn't think we'd see you!" Toni said, pulling you into the largest hug you could imagine a person as tiny as her giving.

Sweet Pea chuckled lightly and said, "Dinner was over sooner than expected. Why are you guys so late?" You were amazed by the ease with which your friend had always been able to deflect attention from himself.

"We had to convince Jug to come out tonight. He was moping and writing his stupid novel, so we dragged him out here," Fangs answered, pulling you into a hug after he was done doing so with Sweet Pea.

"You'll have a better time out tonight, Jug. You and I both need it," you shouted over the suddenly deafening music.

"I somehow really doubt that, Y/N. Bet-"

"Nope. You aren't going to mention her and I won't mention the horrendous evening that Sweets and I just walked away from. Deal?"

He laughed and nodded slowly, letting you pull him standing.

You, Toni, Fangs, Sweet Pea, and Jughead laughed, strained your respective eyes playing cards in the mostly nonexistent light, told stories, and spent the night being teenagers. You ignored the dread that creeped into your heart when you thought of your parents and leaned into Sweet Pea for support when you felt too overwhelmed. He wrapped his arms around your shaking body and held you until you felt like you could be a person for a few more uninterrupted minutes, like a quick power-charging station that you paid for in time, love, and affection.

At the end of the night, the person in charge of the music played one of your favorite slow-paced songs and you convinced Sweet Pea to break his 'no dancing' rule for you, just this once.

You stood at the edge of the circle, arms wrapped around each other, with your head on his shoulder, moving slowly to the beat. The lyrics and feeling of the song matched your newly improved mood. Sweet Pea held you close and kissed your forehead, before leaning his face down against yours and resting it there. Your breaths were in sync and you moved like you were one body. Even when the song had ended, you held each other, feeling your hearts beat in time with the other's.

In that moment, you felt yourself shed the outermost coat of your disgust with life and let yourself be fully in the present. The smallest bit of flame licked your insides and awakened a long-dormant set of feelings; where your apathy had reigned supreme since you had left Riverdale, you now found a sense of self-worth, trust, and pleasure vying for a spot in your mind's eye. You held onto it as you looked up at Sweet Pea, asking him in the silent language that you had grown back into practice using if you could go home.

He nodded and pulled you toward your friend group sitting on the couches at the other end of the lot.

You said goodbye to your friends, thanked them for a great evening, and rode Sweet Pea's bike back to your house. He stopped at the curb in front of your sad, dimly-lit house, but you couldn't get yourself off of his bike. When you looked at the house, you felt all of those good feelings shrink away. Sweet Pea reached one of his hands back and squeezed your thigh firmly.

"You don't want to go in, do you?" He turned and saw that you were shaking your head. "Alright, birdy." He started up Rachel and she revved into action, gliding over the roads and into Sunnyside.

When you reached Sweet Pea's trailer, you felt at ease as you sunk into the comfortable dumpster couch that sat almost dejectedly in his cold, impersonal living room. He plopped into the spot next to you and pulled your legs over his. You noticed then that he was shaking; he'd always run cold, but he was too stubborn to admit it and leave a blanket on the couch for himself. You filed that fact into your head as you pulled your legs off of him and stood, leaving your hand out for him to let you lead him to his bedroom.

Once you were both changed into your pajamas and tucked into his bed, you felt the warmth that you had come to associate with being with Sweet Pea. You looked at the dollar-store calendar on his wall and saw that he hadn't marked his birthday on it.

"What do you want for your birthday, wolfy?"

"More of this."

"Well, duh. This isn't going anywhere."

"Then I don't need anything else," he said, nestling his head under your chin and resting on your chest. "Maybe some cake would be nice though."

"Toni and Fangs are on cake duty. That's what they told me last week."

"I really don't need anything..." He trailed off and you felt him shake his head.

"What, Sweets?"

"It's crazy. Don't worry about it," he said, growing quiet.

You sat up and he popped his head up reluctantly. You held the side of his face and dropped into a slow, passionate kiss. You were trying to tell him, wordlessly, that you were down for pretty much anything.

"Tell me, wolfy," you demanded, feeling blood rush into your cheeks.

"I want you to move in here. With me. We practically live together already and I don't see the point of waiting for some arbitrary age or anything... I don't know. I told you it was crazy." He cast his eyes down and laid his head back on his hands at the end of the arms that he had stretched and folded above his head.

You couldn't help but sit there stunned and quiet.

You weren't against the idea. It was one of the plans that you had both had when you imagined getting older, living together when you'd aged out of the system. But, you were just surprised that he had suggested it now when things between you were so new.

"I would have to get some stuff in order and explain to my parents that it isn't some impulsive thing because they pissed me off," you sighed, straddling him and settling yourself on his lap. He propped himself up and stared into your face, watching you as you thought of all of the things that needed to be done. He made the face he made when he knew you were scheming and he kissed you playfully, pulling your bottom lip with his teeth as he pulled away.

"Is that a yes then?"

"It's a maybe, lovely. I can't give you more than that right now."

He nodded and you both smiled, laying next to one another.

You fell asleep a little over an hour later in the arms of the man that you had known and loved since he was just a boy that believed himself unlovable and you were just a girl who believed herself worthless and unhappy. Neither of you thought differently of yourselves at your cores, even after all of this time, but you once again had one another to remind you that you weren't what your brains made you believe.

Moving in with him, you thought as you nodded off, would kill two insidious and pervasive thoughts in one blow; he wouldn't be alone anymore and you could continue to explore what being happy felt like. It was worth any risks or consequences to keep feeling the way that you did when you were around him, your lovely wolf.


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> You talk your parents into helping move you into Sweet Pea's trailer and you begin to celebrate Sweet Pea's birthday the next day.

"I drove you away. I- I did exactly what I was trying to avoid!" Your dad sat down next to your mom on the couch and buried his head in his hands. He had been pacing while you told them your plan to surprise Sweet Pea by moving in and helping Toni redecorate his trailer. You had decided, in the week and a half since Sweet Pea asked you, that you were in, but the wallpaper and wood panelling was very out.

"Jimmy, they've been planning to live together since they were little and they finally have the opportunity," Maggie said, scratching the top of your dad's back reassuringly. "I knew the second he came to our door sopping wet and bloody from the Rumble that they were serious. He's a lot like you on the whole self-sufficiency thing."

To you, she said, "Sweets and your dad have this awful habit of not asking for what they want or really need. They might ask if they're absolutely out of options, but Sweet Pea coming to our house and getting patched up, that's huge. He trusts you, and to an extent us, and I think that I could agree to have you move in with him." She scratched your dad's head and scooted forward in her seat on the couch. "I just have a few conditions."

"Anything, mom. This is.... This is incredibly important to me," you said, mirroring her and meeting her intense gaze.

"You will both come over for dinner twice a week and more if you have any problems with money or food, you will keep us informed of how you are doing by shooting us a quick text or something, and you will come back here if anything ever happens and you need a break. Really, you're both welcome here. We may only have one bathroom, but we can work another person into the schedule easily. It just means your dad has to cut down his hair-coifing time," she laughed and you both fell into a fit of giggles as Jim raised his head and fixed his messed up hair, before shooting your mom a look.

You dad shifted his gaze to you and saw that you were waiting expectantly for his thoughts. He didn't really deserve a say after the disastrous dinner you had all had, but you gave him the opportunity anyway.

"I am less enthused, but I can get behind it. Mags knows what's best for the people around her and if she thinks you need this, then you probably—" Jim shifted forward and grabbed your hands in his, squeezing firmly and with a palpable poignancy— "If he touches you wrong, says anything to you, or so much as looks at you with that glare that he has, you come back here. Please. You're our daughter and as much as you love him, I hope that you know we both love you more than he could ever."

You nodded and added, "I agree to the dinners as long as nothing like what happened last time ever happens again. You remember those dinners we had all together when I was little, that's what I'm expecting out of the two of you: civil, jovial, and unconditional. Don't ever try to tell me who either of us are again, especially when you were so much worse when you were our age." You watched Jim's face fall and Maggie's face smile brightly. She loved your strength and had trouble hiding her prideful beams, especially since you and Jim had had it out a couple of times recently.

"I can- Ok. I love you, Y/N. I'm sorry I'm so shitty at showing it."

"I love you too, dad. Even when you open your stupid mouth." You stood and kissed his cheek, the warmth and sweatiness of his skin making you simultaneously cringe and laugh to yourself. He was really worked up about you leaving. You appreciated it in a way; your parents would die for you, if need be, and you were thankful to have them in your life.

To Maggie, you motioned for her to stand and embraced her tightly, whispering, "Thank you, mom. I love you so much." After a brief pause enjoying the hug, you added, "I promise that I need this. When we're us, I'm happy and I need to chase that feeling to its logical conclusion."

"I know, lovely girl."

You pulled away and bit your bottom lip. "Is it possible that the two of you can help me get settled in tonight? Fangs and Toni are distracting Sweet Pea for me and I have a bunch of stuff to get done," you asked, an earnest look stretching across your face. You didn't need their help, but it would definitely smooth the process a bit.

"Sure, kiddo. We can do that." Dad stood and you all walked into your packed room.

Though your original reasons for not unpacking were quite morbid, you found that you were fairly pleased with yourself for being so stubborn; it had made the move out process a million times easier. You also didn't have a lot of stuff, which was another huge plus.

When you and your parents got to Sweet Pea's trailer, you knocked before you used the key that he'd given you.

You had woken up the morning after he'd asked you to move in to find him laying on your stomach playing with a key wrapped in a peacock feather pattern. He propped himself up, looked over at you, when you signaled you were awake by chuckling lightly, and reached for your hand. He dropped the key in your palm and wrapped your fingers around the warm metal.

"No pressure. I just wanted you to know that as far as I'm concerned, this is our home. Yours and mine." You pulled the key out of your hand and ran your fingers along its freshly ground teeth and he smiled before adding, "That was the closest I could get to anything tailor made for you, birdy." You pulled him into a kiss that you had hoped would convey just how surprised and pleased you were with him and his gesture.

"Wow, this place is... it has even less character than you made me believe," your mom said as she brought one of your four boxes into the trailer. You set down your duffel bag of clothes and took the box from her, setting it on the small dining table.

"Exactly why I asked for your help. Sweets cleared space for me to put clothes in his dresser and closet, but this place is a blank canvas really. I need your help, miss design master. Please?"

"I'll see what I can come up with. You said Toni is coming by?" Your mom walked around the room picking at the peeling 70s wallpaper and evaluating the state of the space. Jim shook his head and left the trailer in a huff. You heard the car start and when you went out to see what he was doing, you saw him pull away. "He just needs a minute, lovely. He's not ready for you to go anywhere," Maggie assured you as she pulled you in for a hug.

You nodded, wiped your weepy eyes, and said, "yeah, Toni should be by here any minute with some of Sweets's favorite prints, which is why I asked for you guys to go to Michael's with me for frames. We have until tomorrow to make this place perfect. His actual birthday is tomorrow... but you know that. Sorry, I'm just so excited!"

You walked your stuff back into your room and unloaded your belongings into the half of the dresser that was open. Sweet Pea had gotten a new, larger one and installed a shelf on the bathroom wall to help you feel more welcome, despite you insisting that there was nothing that you needed other than him. You threw your knickknacks and books onto the open shelf of his bookshelf and pulled out your box of toiletries and kitchen goods, unloading as you headed toward the kitchen.

A knock sounded on the door and your mom opened it to a slightly rain-soaked Toni.

"Hi, Mrs. Y/L/N! Y/N suckered you into helping after all, huh? Man, she's a persuasive woman when she wants to be," Toni said, walking in and removing her wet boots. "You ladies ready for a work party?"

"Isn't Sweets just at Fangs's trailer? I mean the music-"

"Nah, the boys are hustling suckers at the Wyrm's pool hall and getting good and wasted. They won't be home for hours at least. Sorry, Mrs. Y/L/N, but it's the truth," Toni said, realizing that outing your friends' drinking habits might be in poor taste.

"Don't worry about it, Toni. Jim and I got into a lot worse when we were younger than you guys. And please, call me Maggie. I've never liked being a ma'm or a Mrs." Maggie smiled and pulled some of the wallpaper that was hanging down from the wall closest to the kitchen. The old paper tore off in one big sheet and its edge brought some of the wood paneling up as well. Beneath, the wall was a pleasant, welcoming shade of olive green. "Now why would anyone choose to cover up such a nice color with this shitty paper and fake wood?"

"It is a product of its time I guess, mom. Not everything from the 70s is as amazing as you are," you joked, the three of you falling into a fit of laughter when your mom shot you a fake angry look.

"Are you all unpacked, lady?"

"Yes, mom. I told you it wouldn't take long."

"Good. Toni hit the music. Y/N get over here and start peeling up these boards. I don't think we'll even have to paint if we don't find anything awful after stripping the wall," your mom smiled, her inspired face giving you hope in completing the project tonight.

After hours of work, you, Toni, and Maggie stepped away from the accent wall that you had just finished setting up and sat contentedly on the couch, chowing on pizza. You looked around at the room and loved what you had managed to get done while Toni had focused on stripping the wallpaper in the kitchen and staining the kitchen cabinets, and your mom had stripped and washed the hallway and bathroom.

"The Serpent wall looks.... Wow, Y/N. That's just amazing," Toni said around a ravenous bite of pizza.

You looked at the arrangement of pictures and prints that you, Toni, and Fangs had been working together to create and collect. Being a Serpent was an integral part of all of your lives and you felt like the accent wall was a great place to highlight that. Maggie had painted the double-headed Serpent logo on the maroon wall and you had placed the assorted framed items to make a collage of sorts when the paint had dried.

Since beginning to spend time at Sweet Pea's, you had planned on doing something with the large empty wall that was at the end of the trailer beside the couch, but you hadn't been sure what to do with it. Then, you had gotten your Serpent tattoo a week prior and the idea struck you all at once, almost leaving you as breathless as Magda, the head of your Gaunlet, had. You had been obsessed with the project since.

Now that it was in front of you, you couldn't be happier with the outcome. There were original Serpent-inspired designs that Fangs had drawn and painted as well as prints of different sizes of Toni's photography that you had asked her to copy for you. Pictures of you, Sweet Pea, Toni, Fangs, Jughead, FP, and other random Serpents adorned the wall, giving the large, painted Serpent life of its own. You knew Sweet Pea would love it, and it definitely made you feel more at home being next to something so beautiful that you had contributed to.

"It really is, Y/N. It's better than any arrangement that I could have come up with," your mom gushed, wrapping her tired, paint-covered arm around your waist and giving you a solid squeeze.

"We did a lot tonight ladies. Thank you both so much. I mean really, this is—" You stopped and tears slipped from your overwhelmed eyes; all at once all of the pressure and stress of planning this surprise and seeing it through hit you and you couldn't control it.

"Oh, Y/N. Of course, lovely girl," Maggie said, hugging you tighter.

"You are so welcome, Y/N. You have no idea how much we all appreciate and love you, even Jughead who really doesn't like anybody. You and Sweet Pea are amazing together and if this living together thing is what you needed to bring you guys closer, I'm happy to play cupid. You do owe me that malt from Pop's though. That was the deal," Toni laughed, making you laugh too.

The three of you were sitting in a huddle when you heard a car pull up in front of the trailer and a knock on the front door. You stood and opened it to find your dad holding a large box.

"The sorry excuse for an entertainment system that's here isn't going to do for my daughter. Will you start building this while I go grab the rest?" You nodded and took the heavy box.

You dragged it over to the empty space on the wall opposite the couch and began building the entertainment center cabinet, which was, thankfully, in a black lacquer that matched the color of the couch and the frames.

"It isn't much, but I- Wow, you guys got a lot done. That," Jim paused, pointing at the Serpent wall, "is worthy of a museum, instead of this shithole."

"Well I like it in this shithole. It's my shithole now, dad." You chuckled and pulled Jim in for a big hug and whispered, "thank you. Sweet Pea will be grateful for the new toys."

"Let's get you guys all set up. I can tell you that you'll like it too."

Toni went home a little while after Jim reappeared, and you were happy to see her go; she looked half-dead from fatigue and you knew that it was only a few hours before you were all meeting at Pop's for Sweet Pea's birthday lunch.

You and your mom helped Jim set up the electronics and at the end of the night, you had: a new, large TV mounted securely to the wall; a DVD/VHS combo player so that you could still watch all the old movies Sweet Pea had sitting around; an Xbox with Mortal Kombat X and a couple car racing games; and a new HDMI cord so that you could stream your computer to your TV. Maggie insisted that you use velcro strips to keep the cords in order and you were really grateful that she did, because you couldn't imagine the mess all of the cords would have created if you hadn't.

You spent the night in your new home and walked over to Fangs's trailer in time to get to Pop's for an early lunch.

"Oh, shit, you guys smell like you slept on the floor of a distillery," you coughed out when Fangs opened up his door for you.

"We feel worse than we smell. I don't know why we drank as much as we did," Fangs said, ushering you inside. "Sweet Pea's on my bed if you want to try your hand at convincing him to get up. You look really nice by the way."

"Thank you on both points," you smiled, turning to leave.

"He was really bummed that you didn't come out with us last night," he whispered, pulling you into a hug before you could get too far away.

"I'll make up for it, I promise. Thank you for keeping him occupied."

"You get it all done?"

"My mom and Toni helped. We finished around two or three last night."

"We saw the lights on in his trailer when we stumbled home. I had to convince him that it wasn't a big deal," Fangs chuckled, patting your arm, "go say 'hi'. It'll make his morning."

You walked into Fangs's room, briefly taken aback by the smell of alcohol wafting off of your boyfriend's skin. You stood in the doorframe looking at his disheveled black hair and watching the slow rise and fall of his bare chest as he slept peacefully. You perched on the edge of the bed and ran your fingers along his jaw, down his neck and onto his hot-to-the-touch chest. You rested your fingers on his collarbone and leaned over, kissing it gently, as you had almost every morning that you'd woken up beside him.

"Fangs, I didn't tell you she did that because I wanted you to. Fuck off, dude," Sweet Pea grumbled, rolling away from you.

You laughed quietly and lay down beside him, wrapping your arm over his waist slowly and resting your head beside his, before you whispered, "I sure hope Fangs doesn't do the things I do to you."

Sweet Pea gasped and flipped around, narrowly missing hitting you with his large arm. "Shit, birdy. Hi!" The excitement in his voice was remarkably soft and adorable, and when he pulled you into his arms, you felt the desire to lie there with him for hours. "He doesn't, I promise," he said, burying his face in your shoulder and kissing along your shoulder and neck.

"Happy birthday, wolfy," you said, trying not to get too into his touch.

He kissed up to the place just under your ear beside your jaw, the place he knew would get you going, and it made you catch your breath.

"Thank you," he whispered, going back to the spot and sucking gently.

You leaned into him more and he continued peppering kisses along your skin until he found your waiting mouth. You took him in, despite the slightly repulsive, combined taste of morning and alcohol on his breath, and you felt yourself get worked up while he worked his hands down your body.

"Hey guys, it's getting pretty— Oh, don't mind me, I'm down to wait to see where this goes," Fangs teased, leaning in the doorway.

You and Sweet Pea broke apart and you tried to calm yourself down as the heat that had accumulated in the lower half of your body moved to your chest and face in embarrassment. You sat up and ran your fingers through your hair before you pulled your shirt down, where it should have been, and buttoned your pants, which you hadn't even realized Sweet Pea had undone. You shot both of the boys a look and Sweet Pea started laughing heartily.

"Don't be nasty, Fogarty. I already made her think that you wake me up with kisses in the morning."

"I can try that if it works, man. Waking you up is as futile as waking a bear in the dead of winter," Fangs jeered, "I was just saying that you should take a shower because you're making my whole house stink and then we should be getting to Pop's. It's Saturday morning, so it's already busy from what Toni said."

"Okay, will do." Sweet Pea stood and pulled you into him. "You want to join me, birdy? Fogarty's shower should be big enough to finish what we started."

"Don't make me change your nickname from wolfy to horndog. I'm not against doing so," you replied, pulling out of his arms and sliding past Fangs into the kitchen. "I'll be here when you guys are all ready. I left your birthday outfit in the bathroom, Sweets."

After you had all eaten and Jughead had left to meet up with Betty, you all gave Sweet Pea his gifts. Fangs got him a new basketball with the hope that Sweet Pea wouldn't let Hotdog get to this one; the mutt had the worst habit of tearing literally anything left in front of him apart. Toni gave him a framed picture of the four of you that she had embellished with gold and silver leaf; she had made sure that you left a space for it in the center of the Serpent wall and you loved where the two of you had planned for it to go.

You handed him a small bag with the mug that you had made for him. It was a good sized mug, it could easily hold a good portion of soup or cereal, and it was covered in quotes from some of his favorite songs. It wasn't much, but it was thoughtful and you hoped that would be enough.

"Pop, can I get some tea in my new mug, please?" Sweet Pea asked and Pop Tate walked over with a packet of black tea, a small dish of creamer, and poured hot water into the cup.

When the heat warmed the sides of the cup, it blacked out all but a selected few of the quotes and revealed a message that said,

To my wolfy on his seventeenth,

Thank you for being you and making everyday better.

With all of the love in my being,

Your birdy

When Sweet Pea's eyes met yours, you felt a rush of emotions course through you. He was grateful, as he had been with the other gifts, but there was something else shining in his warm, brown gaze; something that made you feel a giddiness that you almost couldn't contain.

"Thank you, Y/N. This is- thank you."

You nodded and stood to scoot into his side of the booth to give him a hug, but he stood too and gathered you into the largest, most lovely hug you had ever been a part of. He ducked his head down and took you into a passionate kiss, which was really uncharacteristic; both of you were largely against expressing your affection publicly, with the exception of an occasional peck or two and holding hands under tables or desks at school.

When you pulled away, he stood and looked at you smiling. You smiled back and went to sit back down, conscious of all of the eyes that were trained on the two of you.

"The basketball is at least as nice as the mug. What do I get for that?" Fangs asked, standing and holding his arms out.

Sweet Pea hugged him before saying, "You'll get kicked in the ass if you keep making my girl feel awkward, Fogarty."

"But really, Fangs, Toni, Y/N, thank you for last night and this lunch and the gifts. This is the best birthday I've had yet."

"Oh, it'll get better when you go home, trust me," Toni said, glancing at you and finishing the last of her milkshake.

"What do you mean, Topaz?"

Toni ignored his confusion and turned to you saying, "Take him home. I've got Fangs. We'll see you guys later at the arcade, yeah?"

You nodded and looked up at your beautiful man, "Let's go wolfy. I have something to show you."


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Reader reveals the makeover to Sweet Pea’s trailer and they end up having sex for the first time.

“Alright, wolfy. Now it’s time to close your eyes.” You grabbed the gift bag from him and waited until his hands were on his eyes to creak open the door of the trailer. You placed your hands on both of his shoulder blades and guided him in instructing him to step over the threshold. “Okay, you can open,” you said, closing and locking the door behind you.

“What the- did you- Wow, look at that wall!” Sweet Pea stuttered out, taking in the room. His breath was shallow and his face flushed.

His long legs strode the length of the trailer’s living room and in a blink, he was standing in front of the Serpent wall. You pulled Toni’s embellished print out of the gift bag and walked over to him, handing him the frame to place in the open space near the belly of the two-headed Serpent. He placed it and then looked at each of the pictures.

“It’s all of us.” “Oh man, this day was hot.” “I love this one. Toni wouldn’t let me have it before, now I know why.”

He chattered until he stopped finally at a picture of the two of you.

You were sitting on the tailgate of his old pickup and he stood between your legs, leaning back into you, while you had your right arm around his waist and your left arm around his shoulder. You were both, unbeknownst to you at the time, flashing your Serpent tattoos proudly as you laughed about something you didn’t remember, his on his neck pulled taut by the large smile on his face and yours on the lower part of your right arm looking as though it was ready to strike him at any minute.

Sweet Pea stood looking at that picture for a few moments before saying finally, “I have been looking at that guy and I legitimately had no idea who he was until just now.”

You made a point to look closer at it before saying, “It was the two of us at the quarry like three days after I got my tattoo. I think you can still see the bruises from the gauntlet, even though it’s black and white. That’s what happens when you shoot film. No editing capabilities. It really does make it more authentic.”

“No, Y/N. I’m not talking about not remembering being there with you. I’m saying that I have never seen myself that happy. I mean that- that’s pure bliss. You give me that,” he stopped, looking at you as though he was checking if you were following what he was saying. “That’s what I feel like when we’re together and I guess I never thought it would be caught on film. And definitely never in my front room.”

“Sweets, everything you see in that picture from both of us, that’s everyday with us.” You felt a pull to tell him about moving in, but you relished the thought of surprising him too much to end the ruse now.

“How did I not notice this set up? You didn’t have to do this,” Sweet Pea said softly, kneeling in front of the entertainment center and checking out the new electronics.

“It’s no biggie. Jim got it all set up. I made sure it could still play your VHSs. Can’t go without being able to see your Friends tapes or Grease,” you teased, reaching out your hand to lead him to the kitchen.

“It wasn’t too much trouble to pull up the wallpaper or panelling was it? I mean you got this all done and it doesn’t smell like paint or anything.”

“My mom and Toni helped, so it went by pretty quickly. And believe it or not, the paint is original. We decided not to paint over it because the green was so nice with the maroon of the Serpent wall and the yellow of the kitchen. You like the stain on the cabinets? We matched it to the color of the wall.”

“It’s great. Feels more homey in here. I really can’t believe that you did this for me.”

“I spend enough time here, it’s really for me too. Don’t expect too much from us next year,” you joked. You tried to fight the shaking in your body from the anticipation of him getting to the bedroom. You had left the closet door open when you got ready this morning so he’d know as soon as he walked in that you were living with him.

With a chuckle, Sweet Pea backed out of the kitchen and into the hallway, surveying the bathroom before going to his room. You didn’t follow, choosing instead to find a place to lean just outside of his room. You couldn’t see him from where you were, but soon enough you heard a small gasp and then his boots clunked quickly out of his room.

Sweet Pea, all six feet and some inches of him, was humming with excitement. He stood in the hall beside you trying to form words for a couple seconds before he stopped and pulled you to him, holding you tightly. You felt his heart rattle in his chest and heard his shallow breaths in your ear. He dipped his head into the space between your neck and shoulder and, though you initially expected he would start kissing you, held himself there with his head resting on your shoulder. The two of you stood huddled in the hallway for a few moments before your realized that he was shuddering.

You pulled his face up gently so you could see him and he tried to pull away to wipe his tears.

“No,” you said, wiping his left cheek with your thumb.

He looked at you, cheeks streaked with tears and a fragility in his eyes that you had never imagined seeing on someone who always seemed so sure of himself. You had seen it when you were kids, when you would hold each other and cry after a hard day at school or if either of you got rejected from yet another family, but you really didn’t expect to see it from the young man that he’d projected to everyone around him.

“You’re here? To stay?” he asked.

“As long as you’ll have me,” you answered before planting a delicate kiss on his trembling lips. You pulled away to check on him and when he met your gaze, he quickly leaned back toward you, kissing you.

His initial kiss was soft and he shifted his arms to hold the nape of your neck in one of his hands and your lower back with the other. Soon though, his gentle earnestness shifted into voracity, as he pulled you closer and leaned himself against the wall of the hallway. As you kissed, his hand on your back ran up and down, inching you closer until your legs and lower body were practically pinning him against the wall. His other hand ran through your hair along your scalp and then moved to the side of your head where he firmly held you.

After what felt like a few moments, but could have been any amount of time in the world outside of you, Sweet Pea stopped and pulled out his phone. You were taken aback as you watched him scroll through his contacts and call Toni.

“Hey Topaz. Y/N and I are bailing on the arcade. We’re gonna chill at our place tonight.” You heard her faintly on the other end and knew what she was thinking, though you didn’t know if that was what he was planning.

“Ok, yeah. Another time. Just not- not tonight.”

“Ok, goodbye!”

After he hung up, he grinned widely. You shot him a questioning look to which he said, “I just got such a shiver from saying ‘our place’ out loud.” He chuckled and kissed you again before standing up and walking into his room.

You stood in the hallway unsure if you were supposed to follow, but before long he returned with Braveheart, Grease, and Jurassic Park in his hands.

He looked at your lightly disappointed face and laughed before asking, “You up for a movie or two?”

“Most definitely, as long as it isn’t one of those.”

“But they’re my favorites.”

“I know. We watch them every couple weeks. How could I not know?” you teased, grabbing the tapes and putting them back on the bottom shelf of his bookshelf.

You heard him follow you into the room and lean against the doorframe. You turned and saw that he was smiling. Not wanting to let the feeling that had been building in the hallway go to waste, you sat on the bed you had shared many times and patted the seat next to you, pulling out your laptop from your backpack and opening Netflix.

“Your dad bought us all those new toys out there and you want to watch in here on that tiny screen?” Sweet Pea asked as he sat next to you and adjusted himself under your head and shoulders.

You shook your head and continued scrolling through the options, feeling your heart beat quickly as thoughts about what he would feel like while you had sex raced through your mind. You shoved them down as well as you could, but were too distracted to really look at the page in front of you, though you scrolled anyway.

“You sure are moving through the options pretty quickly. You have something in mind?” His question irked you and you decided to play with him a little.

You didn’t want to be the one overthinking this morning and the hall just a few minutes ago if he wasn’t on the same page.

“I had a lot of things in mind in the hallway until you decided to pull out your phone. Now I’m thinking Friends?”

“Wait that we’re friends or the show Friends?”

“It wasn’t that big of a fuckup, goldfish,” you giggled, “I was talking about our TV best friends.”

“Well, cheez-it, I would happily go back to whatever you were thinking.”

“No, no. You wanted a movie night, so that’s what you get.”

“Had I known what else was on the table under the cloche and out of view, I definitely would have gone for it. It isn’t really too late, is it?” He spoke softly into your ear, before he kissed you in the spot on your neck that drove you nuts.

“Is moving in not enough now?”

“Moving in is huge, but you and I making love? That’s monumental.”

“There wouldn’t be any going ba-” Your voice caught in your throat as your body finally and fully realized that it was aroused by his touch.

Sweet Pea sat up, scooted out in front of you, and closed your laptop. You tucked it back into its pocket in your backpack and gave him your full attention.

“Y/N, for real, do you have doubts about this with me? Not sex, but our relationship,” he asked before continuing and dropping his eyes from yours, “I know that I kind of forced you into this with me that night at the Wyrm with that stuff I said, but if there was any time to tell me that you don’t actually want to be with me, it’s now.”

Everything in you died when you heard his words. You hadn’t ever, even for a second, doubted what your friendship had grown into; you were so thankful that he wanted you as much as you wanted him and every second that you had spent with him had made you feel- well, you decided you should just tell him all of what you were thinking.

“No, Sweet Pea. I have always loved you and since I came back, that love has just turned into something else, something new. Every time I’m with you, every minute that I have with or around you, it makes me feel guilty for ever having taken the chance at not getting it. If I had died when I wanted to, when I tried, or if I had listened to my stupid brain any of the times that it has wanted to die since, I wouldn’t have this with you and that is the only negative thing that has ever gone on in my mind in respect to you or us.” You stopped and took a breath before pulling his chin up to meet his eyes.

“You proved that I could be happy and that I could make someone feel as good being around them as they made me feel and that is wholly unique to you.”

He exhaled deeply and brought you in for a kiss that you could only fathom describing as sincere. “You would have told me before if you didn’t want to be with me, wouldn’t you?”

“Did you learn nothing about my ability to censor myself when it comes to my thoughts through our childhood together, wolfy?”

“Do you want to have sex with me, birdy?”

“More than anything else right now, as long as you have a condom and don’t speak while we’re doing it; dirty talk is a huge turnoff for me.” You brushed his sweaty hair out of his face. “What about you? Anything I should know?”

He stood and grabbed a box of regular condoms out of his underwear/sock drawer and set them on his nightstand, before he sat and said, “I’d really rather not take my shirt off; it still bothers me.”

“Cool, you won’t mind if I keep mine on too would you?”

“Not at all. Oh and, please don’t call me 'daddy’ or anything. It’d just be weird for both of us,” he joked.

You laughed together out of nerves and awkwardness until you felt an urge to go for it, to take the dive and go all in with him.

Not that you ever thought sex was the end all be all of a relationship, but you knew it would be the end of the era of Sweet Pea and Y/N, childhood friends. Now you’d be childhood friends turned lovers, or maybe even eventually soulmates.

The sex that you had was awkward and neither of you knew each other well enough to know what the other liked, though you both felt comfortable enough to suggest things so that you both ended up finishing, or more accurately he finished in you and you came because he took the time to coax it out of you. He didn’t feel it was fair to be the only one that got anything out of it and did the finger-work to prove that.

You were sitting on the bed after you had showered together and felt like you should say something. You could see that Sweet Pea was tense from where you were sitting and you weren’t sure why.

“Sweets, will you sit a minute?” He nodded and sat down next to you, expectantly. “I just wanted to say that for that being our first time together, it was pretty good.”

He visibly relaxed and let out a sigh. “I wasn’t sure if you felt that way or not. I thought we were good together actually, and I figured we could only get better.” You nodded at him and he continued, “For a minute there, I thought I’d lost you. When I saw your eyes glaze over, I was fully ready to stop, like forever, if you’d needed to. You know that right?”

“Yeah, Sweets, I know. Sorry about that. I definitely don’t see him when I look at you or go back to that night ever, when I’m with you. Hell, I haven’t even had a nightmare about it when I have slept over, but for that moment, I was there, frozen and scared all over again. I’m sorry if I scared you or anything.”

“Not at all. I just wanted to make sure you were ok. That’s why I stopped. Can you think of anything that would prevent that in the future?”

“I have to learn my triggers still I guess. You did right by stopping and checking in. There might be more of that in the future, if it’s something you’re still okay with, or even want to do again.”

“Of course, birdy,” he said, nudging your arm with his elbow and a cute smirk. “And if you think of anything we can try to prevent it or anything, just talk to me about it. I don’t want you to ever feel unsafe with me. And ideally we’ll work out the kinks and be there for each other, in the moment, the whole time. I mean I love you, so you could tell me I needed to wear Groucho Marx glasses and I’d make it work.” When he finished speaking, he realized what he said and blushed, before meeting your eye again.

“I love you too, wolfy,” you said, holding his sweet face and stroking his cheek. “And we might have to try the Groucho glasses sometime, like on April Fools or something, because I think that would be fucking hilarious.”

“Literally,” he chuckled, pulling you to him and laying down on the bed, with you in his arms.

You spent the rest of the afternoon on your bed, in your towels, joking about little things that you could do together on lazy days, school days, holidays, and really any days that you were together. You laughed harder than you ever had before and realized that part fo what you had thought was aggravation between the two of you had instead been sexual tension, which relieved you and made you laugh at yourself at the same time.

After that afternoon, you knew as long as you were together and took the time to talk about what you needed from each other, you would be a million times better than any couple either of you had witnessed growing up. And that was something that you knew you would both try your damndest to live up to.


End file.
